Samantha Baars

Christopher Cantwell, who has been dubbed the “Crying Nazi” by critics of his teary Youtube video made after the August 12 alt-right rally and before he turned himself into police August 24, was denied bond today by a judge who cited a widely seen Vice interview that she said showed Cantwell’s approval of the violence […]

When then 84-year-old Donald Short shot his mentally ill son to death last November, he said he was defending himself and his family. The former University of Virginia cop entered an Alford plea to involuntary manslaughter in Albemarle Circuit Court on August 25, which is not an admission of guilt, but means he believed the […]

When Ohio resident Bill Burke came to protest Charlottesville’s white nationalist Unite the Right rally, he was expecting a peaceful assembly. Instead, he got plowed into by a 20-year-old driving a Dodge Challenger. “I can remember the feeling of people hitting up against me,” he says in an email. “I’m not sure if the car […]

The Lawn was illuminated in soft white candlelight last night as thousands of community members retraced the steps of the August 11 white nationalist tiki torch march from the University of Virginia’s Nameless Field to the Rotunda. Their message was of love and peace, and taking back what belongs to them. “I think it’s important […]

Droves of community members clothed in shades of purple poured into the Paramount Theater August 16 to remember Heather Heyer, a local activist and paralegal who lost her life to what some have called an act of domestic terror the weekend before. “They tried to kill my child to shut her up. Well, guess what. […]

Two days after he plowed into a group of peaceful counterprotesters with his car, white nationalist James Alex Fields Jr. appeared via webcam in Charlottesville General District Court Monday morning. The Maumee, Ohio, man, 20, is charged with second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and a hit-and-run for driving his Dodge Challenger down Fourth […]

In the most devastating blow of the Unite the Right rally, a local activist and paralegal lost her life to a white supremacist in a Dodge Challenger. Heather Heyer, 32, is remembered by many as sweet and funny with impeccable wit. “She always had a very strong sense of right and wrong. She always, even […]

The Rutherford Institute and the ACLU of Virginia have given the city of Charlottesville until 12pm today to respond to their letter demanding city leaders allow Jason Kessler to hold his August 12 Unite the Right rally in Emancipation Park. When city manager Maurice Jones announced August 7 that he approved Kessler’s event permit, but […]

Despite the history of a failed wind farm in Highland County, a local renewable energy firm is on track to build the first one in Virginia. Apex Clean Energy, which has 167 employees in Charlottesville, received a permit from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality in March to build Rocky Forge Wind, an array of […]

Miss out on a week of Albemarle County happenings? On August 2 the Board of Supervisors voted to only require a business license for those making at least $25,000 a year, instead of the previous $5,000 threshold. They’ve requested a new entrance for the proposed Hedgerow Park, and will soon ask for public input on […]

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released its final environmental impact statement for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline July 21, and it said the proposed 600-mile, $5.5 billion natural gas pipeline will have a “less than significant” impact on the environment. “The [final environmental impact statement] paints a terrifying picture of a bleak future,” says Ernie Reed, […]

City Council is expected to vote next month on a proposed Woolen Mills historic conservation district that would impose new regulations on about 85 residences and that continues to divide homeowners in the neighborhood. “It’s pretty cut and dry that people don’t want it,” says Eric Hurt, a resident who will live in the historic […]

A former Western Albemarle High School associate principal, teacher and coach denies he molested a 12-year-old student in Louisiana in the early 1980s. The New Orleans Advocate reports his accuser told a New Orleans detective in early 2016 that, while attending Isidore Newman School, she had a crush on teacher Greg Domecq, who allegedly kissed […]

Four Jaunt buses and a townhome were up in flames when the Charlottesville Fire Department received a call for service around 2:40am July 13. Alice Facknitz, who lives in the Carlton Bridge apartment complex behind the Jaunt station and the Linden Town Lofts townhomes, says she woke to what she later learned was the sound […]

Monday morning listeners expecting to hear the news on Virginia Public Radio’s WVTF got music instead July 10. This is a product of “the big switch,” a format change for the network, in which 89.7 FM will only play tunes in Charlottesville. RadioIQ, the public radio group’s all-talk station, will now become its sole news […]

Virginia traffic officials began discussing ways to make U.S. 29—a highway that carries 50,000 vehicles a day—flow more successfully about three decades ago, Secretary of Transportation Aubrey Layne says. When Governor Terry McAuliffe took office three-and-a-half years ago, he made it a top priority. Today, the governor and his colleague visited Albemarle County for a […]

Clean energy is on the rise, and Reston-based group SolUnesco is planning to build a 70-acre solar farm in Albemarle County, which would be the first of its kind in the area. One local nature enthusiast, however, says these “so-called green energy sources” aren’t as harmless to the environment as many people think. “Although green […]

Last August, locals protested Dominion Virginia Power’s plans to rebuild area transmission lines with a much brighter material than their darker predecessors. Now a state commission has ruled that the power company must chemically darken its structures, and the group of people that worried new lines would stick out like a sore thumb is rejoicing. […]

First he brought you Studio IX, and now he’s set his sights on another collaborative workspace, one for whom he dubs the town’s creative entrepreneurs. In the Downtown Mall’s historic Bradbury building—the former Bank of America space—James Barton prepares to open Vault Virginia, where he says commercial atmosphere will meet a residential one in a […]

The man involved in the county’s first fatal traffic crash of 2016 pleaded guilty to possession of heroin, cocaine, a generic form of Xanax and to reckless driving in Albemarle County Circuit Court June 21 as part of a plea agreement. On March 15, 2016, Frayser “Kip” White IV allegedly crossed double-solid yellow lines in […]

The man charged with beating a 58-year-old special education teacher and her 17-year-old daughter to death before setting their Rugby Avenue home ablaze in December 2014 pleaded guilty to one count of capital murder and one count of second degree murder in Charlottesville Circuit Court on June 21. Gasps filtered through the courtroom and a […]

One in every three bites of food we take has been touched by a pollinator. And Scottsville—recently the first town in Virginia to become a Bee City—is sharing the buzz on the role pollinators play in the community. On June 24, during National Pollinator Week, Scottsville will host its first pollinator celebration in which, among […]

Every kitchen sink will face a window that looks out into the front yard in a new 26-home development in Crozet. Lounging comfortably around the living room of their clubhouse, Emerson Commons residents call this design “classic cohousing,” because it encourages interaction with neighbors. Periphery parking lots that allow for a traffic-free and kid-friendly community, […]

There are an average of 32,000 firearm deaths in the country every year—and there have been 224 school shootings since 2013. “Schools are one of the safest places for kids to be,” says Dewey Cornell, a professor at UVA’s Curry School of Education and director of the university’s Virginia Youth Violence Project. At his June […]

Quillback carpsucker. Flathead catfish. Gizzard shad. American eel. Carp. If you catch one of these in the James River, you’re better off throwing it back in. Danny Hodge, a visiting fisherman recently stationed on the James, did just that when he says he reeled in a 20-pound catfish last month. “I wouldn’t eat none of […]

On the heels of President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement Accord, Mayor Mike Signer announced today that he has joined the Mayors National Climate Action Agenda to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and identify their sources. This is an effort, he says, to continue resisting. “Resistance has come to mean many things to […]

Since 2003, Bree Luck has risen through the ranks at Live Arts—first as a volunteer, performing and directing, and then serving as education director. Most recently, Luck was the theater’s interim managing artistic director. This month, the Henry, Virginia, native—also a former Georgian, New Yorker and Californian—takes the helm as the theater’s producing artistic director, […]